New York Times, Friday, August 4, 2017

I once heard (or possibly read) an interview with Will Shortz, in which he was asked about common grammatical errors, and he said the word "led" was misspelled as "lead" relatively frequently, even by well-educated people. This got me thinking about other "words even smart people mess up," and I think we can add "pharaoh" to the list.

At the Indie 500 crossword puzzle tournament a few years ago (2015, America Pharoah's big year, as it was), PHARAOH was an entry in a puzzle, but it wasn't clear from the crossings whether it should be A-O or O-A, and I surprised to find out that even a few of the top solvers had it the wrong way. So, I wonder how this played for most people. Did they try AMERICA PHARAOH first? Is the misspelling common knowledge? Or were they blissfully unaware that anything was strange at all?

The wide-open grid provided me a nice wow factor. Giant center, giant NW and SE, along with two grid-spanning entries? Yes, please! Grid patterns in themed puzzles rarely make me sit up straight and take notice, so I enjoy when a themeless grid is eye-popping.

Some great entries, too. AMERICAN PHAROAH hasn't made many reappearances since his 2015 Triple Crown win. Surprising on one hand, as the odd spelling is notable. I wonder how many crossword constructors are horse racing fans, though.

I didn't know much (anything, really) about TSAR ALEXANDER II, but what a cool nickname.

I HAD NO IDEA was fun too, although I had no idea there was such a thing as the GIG ECONOMY. I read the WSJ regularly, but perhaps this term just hasn't trickled down to this old-school finance wonk. And it does make sense; an economy based around one-time gigs.

I also didn't understand LATE EDITION. The late edition of the newspaper, okay. What makes it quaint? I researched this for hours (okay, three minutes) to figure out what clever wordplay was eluding me, but I failed. Best guess is that "quaint" implies that these days, not many newspapers run a late edition?

A couple of compromises to make the wide-open sections work, i.e. IS SO / SLO / APPT in the big SE, and BIGA (Big A?) / BS'S in the big NW. No terrible trade-offs, but not amazingly elegant, either.

I appreciated how many interesting long feature entries Damon managed to work in, and from so many walks of life. It's too bad a few of them didn't have much of an impact--or had a confusing one--for me.